I recently used an antiquing kit from Rustoleum's American Accents collection and the look is awful. The base coat is ivory and the stain top coat is a brown color. It doesn't look antiqued to me, it just resembles an off white color that someone threw muddy water on.

After reading online how to antique furniture, I am finding the same directions as the kit, base coat followed by the stain. What am I doing wrong? Anyone know of another way or paint source that would achieve a antiqued shabby chic look? Any ideas how I can save what I have done so far and improve the look without having to use a crackle finish?

I would appreciate any help I can get.

Practice. Antiquing furniture is an art. It is very much like faux finishing. I would suggest practicing on old pieces of wood to improve your technique for application and design. If you don't want to use up the paint that you have purchased for the antiquing when practicing, maybe you or someone you know, has some old paint lying around that you could use for practice.

I would also suggest looking at a lot of pictures of antiqued furniture and try to imitate what you see.

antiqued furniture - Google Image Search